THE MONKEYS. MAMMALL 



HOONUMAX. 



27 



monkey the old males measuring nearly five feet in 

 height of a yellowish or greyish-white colour, darker 

 on the back, limbs, and tail, and with the face and 

 hands black. The hair above the eyebrows forms a 

 sort of projecting fillet across the front of the head ; 

 the face is bordered on each side with light whiskers, 

 and the chin is furnished with a beard, which is peaked 

 and directed forwards. As the animals increase in 

 age the fur becomes darker, until it is of a nearly uni- 

 form rusty brown colour. 



The hoonuman is an exceedingly abundant monkey 

 in India, especially in Bengal. During the summer it 

 migrates northwards into the hills, travelling as far as 

 Nepaul, and even to the elevated plain of Boutan. It 

 is regarded with great veneration by the Hindoos, who 

 have even deified it, and assigned it a high place in 

 their almost innumerable multitude of gods. They 

 look upon the destruction of a hoonuman with the 

 greatest horror, and believe that the perpetrator of 

 such a crime will certainly die within a year after its 

 commission. M. Duvaucel, from whom we have already 

 quoted, gives an amusing account of the difficulty which 

 he experienced in obtaining specimens, in consequence 

 of this superstitious feeling. As soon as he was seen 

 abroad with his gun, he was surrounded by crowds of 

 natives, who employed themselves assiduously in chas- 

 ing the monkeys out of gunshot ; and during a whole 

 month that a small family of hoonumans remained at 

 Chandernagore, where he was residing, his house was 

 constantly surrounded by Brahmins, who tormented 

 him by incessantly beating tomtoms and drums to scare 

 the four-handed divinities from so dangerous a neigh- 

 bourhood. On entering the holy city of Goalpara, he 

 saw the trees everywhere covered with these long-tailed 

 deities, which immediately fled with loud cries, whilst 

 a dozen Hindoos surrounded the traveller and endea- 

 voured to impress upon him the danger he would incur 

 by molesting or injuring animals which were nothing 

 less than metamorphosed princes and heroes. Passing 

 on, however, he says he met a princess so seductive 

 that he could not resist the temptation of cultivating a 

 nearer acquaintance with her. He levelled his gun and 

 fired ; but then, to quote his own words, he " became 

 witness of a scene which was truly touching and 

 pathetic. The poor animal, which had a young one 

 on her back, had been hit near the heart ; feeling her- 

 self mortally wounded, she collected ah 1 her remaining 

 force for the effort, seized her young one, and was just 

 able to throw it up into the branches of a neighbouring 

 tree, before she fell and expired at his feet. An inci- 

 dent so touching," adds M. Duvaucel, " made a greater 

 impression on me than all the discourses of the Brah- 

 mins ; and the pleasure of obtaining a specimen of so 

 beautiful an animal, was, for once, incapable of con- 

 tending against the regret which I felt for having killed 

 a creature which appeared to be bound to life only by 

 the most estimable and praiseworthy feelings." 



As might be anticipated, these monkeys, being pro- 

 tected from all injury by the superstitions of the 

 inhabitants, abound to such an extent, and feel so little 

 fear of man, that they become a positive nuisance to 

 those whose minds are not so constituted as to enable 

 them to regard the hoonuman in the light of a divinity. 



They take up their abode in the topes or groves of trees 

 which the Hindoos plant around their villages, and are 

 often so numerous in the towns that Sir James Forbes 

 considered that in Dhuboy there were more monkeys 

 than human inhabitants. They visit the houses of 

 the natives, who willingly provide them with food; 

 and in the villages they often plunder the peasants, 

 who, however, regard their visits as a high honour. 

 At Dhuboy, according to Forbes, the roofs of the houses 

 seemed to be entirely appropriated to the accommoda- 

 tion of the monkeys, and the same writer gives a ludi- 

 crous account of his having been compelled to remove 

 from a shady verandah, in consequence of the pertina- 

 cious pelting administered to him with fragments of 

 tiles and mortar from the roof of an opposite house by 

 these animals. He also describes a curious mode of 

 revenge sometimes adopted by the Hindoos of that 

 town, in which the hoonumans are the principal agents. 

 It appears that before the commencement of the rains, 

 about the middle of June, it is usual to turn all the 

 tiles on the roofs of the houses. The tiles are not 

 fixed with mortar, but accurately adjusted one over 

 the other, so that, if this operation is performed just 

 before the setting in of the rains, the roof will be water- 

 tight during the wet season, and afterwards a few gaps 

 are of little consequence. It is at this period, when 

 the tiles have been turned and the first rains are hourly 

 expected, that the Hindoo who has a grudge to gratify 

 repairs at night to the house of his adversary, and 

 strews a quantity of grain over the roof. This is soon 

 discovered by the monkeys, who assemble in great 

 numbers to pick up their favourite food ; and, as much 

 of the grain naturally falls between the tiles, they soon 

 nearly unroof the house in their efforts to get at it. 



In other respects they appear to be exceedingly 

 mischievous and destructive. They often descend in 

 troops upon the cultivated fields ; and it is said that 

 when the troop is pretty numerous, they will strip a 

 maize field of moderate size in a few hours. The dis- 

 position of the males, also, is described as so libidinous, 

 that it is not safe for a woman to pass their haunts. 

 The only return they make for ah 1 the damage they do, 

 and all the kindness shown them by the natives, is 

 that, according to Forbes, they frequently destroy 

 poisonous snakes. They seize them by the neck when 

 asleep, and then, "running to the nearest flat stone, 

 grind down the head by a strong friction on the sur- 

 face, frequently looking at it, and grinning at their 

 progress. When convinced that the venomous fangs 

 are destroyed, they toss the reptile to their young ones 

 to play with, and seem to rejoice in the destruction of 

 the common enemy." The tigers and other carnivor- 

 ous quadrupeds of India, having no such scruples as 

 those of the human inhabitants of the country, are said 

 to wage a constant war with the hoonumans. The 

 tiger is described as taking up a position at the foot of 

 the tree in which the monkeys have taken refuge, when 

 his roaring so frightens them that they tumble down 

 and he devours them at his leisure. 



The cause of the veneration in which the hoonuman 

 is held by the Hindoos, which, indeed, is also extended, 

 although in a less degree, to other monkeys, is doubt- 

 less partly to be ascribed to the Brahminical doctrine 



